


Breaking Tradition

by rauchblau



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, M/M, Oblivious Iwaizumi Hajime, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Sleepovers, Unresolved, except Hajime, i can't believe there's a suggested tag for this, literally everyone and their mother knows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 14:44:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6428404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rauchblau/pseuds/rauchblau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first Friday of the month is Sleepover Friday. It’s always been like that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Tradition

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing a longer relationship study for those two for the past couple of weeks, but that won't be finished for a while and I wanted to do a standalone piece of manageable length for a change. 
> 
> Have this shamelessly self-indulgent piece of pre-relationship dynamics where Oikawa goes on a date and Hajime tries (and fails) to figure out whether that bothers him. (Alternatively titled: Literally Everyone And Your Mom Knows, Geez, Hajime)

“Iwa-chan, about tomorrow”, Oikawa says, swaying a bit to the left so that his shoulder brushes Hajime’s. It’s the gentlest way he has of calling Hajime to attention like this, on their walk home. It’s a guilty way of doing it, too. Oikawa only ever brings out the gentle things when he’s feeling bad.

Hajime grunts to signal that he’s listening, but keeps looking ahead. Oikawa has been jumpy since afternoon practice yesterday, a strained note in his laughter and too little stealing from Hajime’s bento during lunch. Apparently he’s going to get an explanation now. It usually helps if Oikawa can pretend that Hajime is listening only half-heartedly, so he watches a little girl on the other side of the street trying to rip open the colourful plastic wrapper of her popsicle without slowing her walk. Judging from the way she screws up her face, that’s too big a feat of coordination.

Oikawa starts talking just as she gives up and slows to a stop with an impatient huff.

“We might have to postpone…”

It comes out hesitantly, like a question. Hajime can’t really say he’s surprised. In fact, he has had the past minute of watching that girl struggle with her plastic wrapper to come to the conclusion that Oikawa’s guilty demeanour has something to do with the upcoming first Friday of the month, and he has prepared his shrug. It’s not that big of a deal; they’ve cancelled those nights before. Hajime catching the flu, Oikawa having to travel across the country for his grandfather’s birthday on Saturday, one or both of them being grounded. It’s just that Oikawa has never been this incessantly guilty about it. And then Oikawa talks on and it hits Hajime, the understanding, hot and sudden.

“Because I might have a date?”

The little girl crumples up the plastic wrapper and stuffs it into her coat pocket. She skips on, bright red popsicle in hand. Oikawa is watching him out of the corners of his eyes. His shoulder is still brushing Hajime’s with every other step. Hajime’s own shoulders feel much too heavy to give the casual shrug that he expects of them. He still forces them to, and nudges Oikawa with his elbow for good measure. The little girl disappears around a corner.

“That’s what you’re being so upset about? It’s not like we haven’t cancelled these things before. We’re sixteen, idiot; we can't expect each other to continue a stupid childhood tradition forever. It’s probably going to happen a lot more in the future, so cheer up.”

Hajime will think about how the words sit strangely on his tongue, later. Right now, Oikawa is looking all but relieved, chewing on his lower lip with his eyes fixed on some indistinguishable spot in the greying sky in front of them. It’s just like him to beat himself up about something like that. The silence bears down on them. It drowns out all other noise except for their steps and the whisper of fabric brushing against fabric.

“Oi”, Hajime interrupts, trying to find his footing on a terrain that should be more familiar, “stop feeling guilty. I don’t have to sit through a shitty movie tomorrow night. If anything, I should be thanking you. But if you need to make a sacrifice to silence your conscience, I call dibs on next month’s choice.”

The effect is immediate.

“I’ll have you know that my movie choices are impeccable”, Oikawa says haughtily. “You’re just a heathen.”

Hajime manages to turn his relieved exhale into a disbelieving snort. Oikawa offers a tentative smile.

They walk home in silence after that, Oikawa having returned to his own bubble of personal space, but it feels less oppressing than before. Over his math homework and helping his mother with dinner, Hajime forgets to wonder about his own reaction.

 

 

 

He is reminded of it at breakfast the next morning, when he tells his mother that Oikawa is not coming over tonight, so she doesn’t need to bother with dinner as much as she would if he did.

“Is he ill?”, she inquires immediately, looking concerned.

“Just on a date”, Hajime says off-handedly between two bites. The silence that follows is too long and has an eerie quality. It reminds him again of the strangeness he, too, perceived in yesterday’s exchange. Why is everyone (him included) acting like this is a big deal?

“Well”, his mother says, moving to stand. “I already got the groceries so we’re still going to have a special dinner.”

When she passes him on her way to the kitchen, she touches his shoulder. It’s fleeting, almost not there, like the ones she gives when she moves to console him and checks herself because he’s no longer five. Hajime wonders whether he would feel this strange if everyone were just treating him normally.

 

 

 

He has a nice, quiet evening, eating dinner with his parents and watching TV with his mother for a while before catching up on some reading for class. He would wonder more about what Oikawa was doing, probably, if that idiot hadn’t chewed his ear off all day with his plans for the evening. So Hajime knows where he is going to take the girl (Masaoka Sayuri, class three), what he is going to wear and order and what is considered acceptable first-date behaviour. As it is, he just needs to check the time to know that Oikawa is now at the cinema, or probably just leaving the cinema, or currently having ice-cream, or in the middle of walking the girl home. In fact, he can imagine him all too well, in his ridiculous pair of ‘fade out’ jeans he is so proud of, flicking back his stupid hair and laughing this stupid little laugh he thinks is enticing.

Hajime has read the same sentence about four times in a row. He throws his book shut and goes to turn on his laptop. There’s still that series that Hanamaki recommended about two weeks ago and that Hajime still hasn’t gotten around to watching. He plugs in his headphones, clicks on the link Hanamaki sent, and is soon immersed in the story.

It’s some western thing with a shallow plot and, as promised, hilariously bad special effects. Although it’s definitely better than Oikawa’s dumb alien movies, it feels more like a waste of time. Possibly because Oikawa isn’t leaning on his shoulder narrating the protagonist’s thought process despite Hajime’s repeated attempts to shut him up. This, too, is probably the fault of his mother, who has been looking at him with poorly disguised pity all evening, like Hajime can’t handle to get a break from Oikawa from time to time. He cranks up the volume.

Considering that, it’s probably lucky that his phone rings when the protagonist and his love interest are having their dramatic heart-to-heart some time later, the soundtrack subsiding for a minute to give way to the chirpy K-pop song Oikawa has set as his personalized ringtone “so you’ll always know it’s me and pick up especially fast, Iwa-chan!” In this case, Hajime _does_ rip off his headphones and scramble to pick it up. His parents wouldn’t approve of being woken up like that.

“What the fuck, Oikawa, it’s two in the morning?”

Oikawa laughs his little laugh, unfazed. “I can see your lights are still on, Iwa-chan. Can I come over?”

“What?” That escapes before Hajime has consciously processed what Oikawa said, and considerably louder than he should speak at this hour. He cuts himself off, straining to listen, but the house remains quiet. When he resumes talking, the words come in a more controlled and more appropriate whisper. “What about your date?”

“It’s not like we’re going to sleep together right away, sheesh.” Oikawa sighs impatiently, like Hajime is stupid for even asking. “Actually I’ve been home for a while.”

That little ‘right away’ echoes as if it carried far more weight. Hajime runs through the things he could say ( _so I take it the date was good?, I’m glad she was nice, So you’ll see her again?,_ hell, even _how was the movie?_ ), but finds that he really doesn’t want to talk about Oikawa’s date right now. Small tinny sounds are bleeding from his discarded headphones. He turns the sound off without looking. He still hasn’t found anything to say.

Oikawa hums softly on the other end of the line. “It’s just… a little weird, don’t you think?”

Hajime barks a laugh. “What?” He means, what of all of this? The way everyone behaves like we’re breaking a sacrosanct tradition here? The way you’re jumpy and guilty about it, fiddling with your pens all morning and giving me far too many tosses at practice like you have to make up for something? The way I want to treat you like you _do_ have to make up for it? But he doesn’t say any of that, because Oikawa talks on.

“It’s our Friday, and I’m in my room and you’re in yours. That’s kind of wrong, isn’t it? I mean, I _could_ be over. Technically.” Hajime would almost say he sounds breathless, except there’s no reason for him to be.

He looks at the time. His alarm clock blinks a lazy 02:17.

“At least let me wave goodnight to you, Iwa-chan”, Oikawa whines. “I’m feeling strange; I can’t sleep. Come on, open your blinds.”

That startles Hajime into a reply. “Are you in front of my house?”, he asks incredulously.

“Told you I couldn’t sleep.” He can almost see Oikawa’s shrug, that quick and seemingly casual movement of his shoulders that means he’d really rather not talk about it.

“You’re a fucking idiot”, Hajime says into his phone. “I’m coming down.”

 

 

 

Oikawa is in his pajamas when Hajime opens the door, barefoot and soft-looking in the light that spills out from the hallway. He’s clutching his phone and smiling one of his better fake smiles, the one that even crinkles the corners of his eyes. Hajime sees through it anyway.

“Stop smiling when you don’t mean it. And don’t wake anyone up.”

Oikawa follows him upstairs silently, the soft patter of his bare and Hajime’s socked feet barely audible over the sounds of the sleeping house. Hajime slides the door of his room shut and starts digging out the guest futon from under his bed. Crouched on the floor with his back turned to Oikawa, he can feel the restlessness coming off him in waves. He’s probably shifting from foot to foot, pretending to do things on his phone. It’s not usual behavior for him, but Hajime is frankly too tired and inexplicably annoyed to start needling him until he spills.

“You’re always such a piece of work”, he grumbles under his breath instead, tugging at the blanket until it comes free. There are maybe two, three seconds of tugging, and then, barely having started the motion of turning around to throw the blanket out over the futon, Hajime freezes. Suddenly Oikawa is there, at his back. He’s sitting very close. Hajime can feel the dip his weight creates in the futon, the warmth from his body seeping through the soft, worn fabric of his shirt. He smells faintly of some cologne, and fainter still of his usual shampoo. Just at the edge of his field of vision is the line of Oikawa’s shoulder and upper arm, sloping down to disappear behind the plane of Hajime’s own shoulder. He’s very still. Hajime’s neck prickles (he’s being stared at, in that unblinking, unyielding way Oikawa has). The cool fabric of the blanket is rapidly warming between his fingers.

The silence weighs heavy. Hajime is tipped over an abyss but caught mid-motion like he’s holding himself upright just by the stillness of his body, his equilibrium fragile, full of anticipation of something enormous, everything waiting for Oikawa to move. Hajime is so tired of feeling that way. So, with the next inhale, he shatters the moment.

Oikawa squawks when the blanket is shoved into his face.

“At least help me to make your bed”, Hajime grouses, thankful for having to whisper. His voice feels weird.

“I could always just sleep in your bed, Iwa-chan, if it’s so much work to set up my futon”, Oikawa singsongs obnoxiously, but obliges and spreads out the blanket.

“You can sleep _outside_ for all I care”, Hajime says roughly. His ears are burning. At this point of their friendship he is almost as embarrassed by his reaction to Oikawa’s quips as by what Oikawa actually says. He should really have gotten used to Oikawa’s constant flirting and unabashed propositioning by now.

“You are such a brute”, Oikawa sniffs, wriggling under his blanket with a contented sigh. “Now turn off the lights, I want to sleep.”

“I let you in here because you said you couldn’t sleep”, Hajime points out. Oikawa doesn’t grace him with a response. “You didn’t even brush your teeth yet. That’s disgusting.”

“Did it at home”, Oikawa mumbles. His eyes are half-closed and he really does look tired, nestled into his blanket and pillow like the overgrown kid he is.

Hajime feels his irritation disperse. “I’ll be quick”, he says softly, shutting his laptop. All he gets in response is a sleepy hum.

He changes into his own pajamas quietly and goes to the bathroom. He returns to the sight of Oikawa fast asleep, face slack and mouth open, nose buried into his pillow and hair everywhere, hands curled protectively under his chin. Hajime’s chest feels tight. He clicks off the light and steps over Oikawa to get into his own bed.

The silence settles in, punctuated by Oikawa’s deep breathing, and with it the knowledge that whatever strangeness accompanied them was remedied by Oikawa’s appearance on his doorstep tonight, whatever that might mean. Hajime falls asleep questioning himself.

**Author's Note:**

> If you noticed any mistakes, throw them at me, please! Writing in English is lots of fun, but it also sometimes feels like I'm navigating a forest of collocations at high speed and blindfolded.
> 
> Actually, if anyone is interested in eventually betaing that 10k+ relationship study, hit me up! My commas are very well-behaved, as is other orthography-related stuff, but I'd feel much better if someone were to look over it to tell me 'this word is a false friend' and 'you're being way too vague here, no one's gonna pick up on that'. Eternal gratitude is promised!


End file.
